You’re not alone if you think cleansing your colon involves long, scary looking tubes, or sitting on the toilet all day.
But the truth is, learning how to cleanse your colon doesn’t have to be scary or painful.
In fact, doing a natural colon cleanse isn’t any more complicated than simply increasing a few extra nutrients to your diet.
I always say that when you cleanse one thing, you cleanse everything – which is why doing a natural colon cleanse with nutrients from whole foods is more effective than a store-bought kit or pile of herbs.
When you improve your digestion by increasing specific nutrients in your diet, you’ll not only offer your colon, but also your entire body, the nutrients it needs to function more efficiently.
That’s why doing a natural colon cleanse can provide greater, long-lasting results than a one of those scary versions.
With that said, here’s how to cleanse your colon safely and naturally with the top 3 nutrients for digestive health.
1. Increase Fiber
Fiber is the number one nutrient we require to help eliminate accumulated waste from our gastrointestinal (GI) tract (1).
As unpleasant as it sounds, we all have food (and toxins) sitting in our intestinal tract waiting to be eliminated. And the more fiber you eat, the more waste you’ll cleanse from your body.
Fiber is the indigestible part of plant foods. There are two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble.
Soluble fiber helps “bulk” up your stool by turning to a gel-like substance during digestion, while insoluble fiber goes through your GI tract undigested, “sweeping away” lingering waste. This is how fiber can bind to toxins and promote detoxification by carrying waste out of your GI tract.
Most plant-based foods will contain both insoluble and insoluble fiber.
However, some are richer in one fiber than others. A few foods high in soluble fiber include chia seeds, onions, chicory root and bananas.
Meanwhile, foods high in insoluble fiber are fruit, veggies, beans, lentils and whole grains.
Increasing the fiber in your diet is easy: all you have to do is add an extra veggie to your meals each day.
Green smoothies are another way to effortlessly increase your fiber intake, since you can blend several high-fiber foods together at once.
If you have a diet rich in processed foods or refined sugar, I recommend increasing your fiber intake through green smoothies first.
As an indigestible nutrient, fiber can cause digestive symptoms, such as gas and bloating. By blending high fiber foods, you “pre-digest” them, which makes them easier for your body to breakdown, and causes fewer digestive symptoms.
2. Increase Water
Now, it’s one thing to increase your fiber. But the “bulk” requires the help of water to move through your GI tract.
If you’ve ever increased your fiber intake and suddenly became constipated, it’s likely that you were dehydrated.
To promote natural colon cleansing with fiber, it’s essential to increase water and fiber intake simultaneously so that waste can move through easily.
If you’re unsure of how much water you need each day, a general guideline is your body weight in pounds divided by 2 (or half of your body weight). The number you end up with is how many ounces of water you should be drinking each day, before factoring in exercise or dehydrating beverages, such as alcohol and coffee.
3. Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids
Lastly, doing a natural colon cleanse also requires omega 3 essential fatty acids.
Omega 3s are one of the best anti-inflammatory nutrients to include in your diet (2).
And as you may have heard before, inflammation is at the root cause of all illness and disease – especially when it comes to gastrointestinal conditions (3).
As a fatty acid, omega 3s are naturally moisturizing. This means they can also act as a natural “internal lubricant” to help waste move through your GI tract much easier.
The best sources of omega 3 essential fatty acids to include in your diet are wild fatty fish, hemp hearts, walnuts, flaxseed, avocado, algae and fish oil.
It’s All About Proper Nutrition
Based on these recommendations for cleansing your colon, it’s easy to see that proper nutrition goes along way when it comes to doing a natural colon cleanse.
By getting enough fiber and healthy fats and staying hydrated each day, you’ll be cleansing your colon daily without even thinking about it.
